The Vampire Diaries: The Salvation: Unseen

by L. J. Smith

  “We’ll do our best,” Elena said, her eyes still fixed over the water. “I promise. I want to save her as much as you do.” She was trying not to show it, but she was used to having Stefan, Meredith, and Bonnie on her side. With Bonnie gone and the others united against her, Elena felt so alone.

  She gritted her teeth. She was doing the right thing, and that had to count for something.

  There was a plashing of oars as Matt rowed up to them in a dented old rowboat. He jumped out and waded to shore, pulling the boat up behind him. “Here we go,” he said. “There wasn’t much selection. The crew team locks their boats up.”

  Elena sat in the front of the boat and pointed the way, while Darlene and Matt each took an oar.

  As they traveled, the evil aura got darker and thicker. Elena was sure now that it was Solomon’s. It felt ancient and cruel, like a bitter memory, something that had survived long millennia steeped in violence and hate. There was a strange yellowish-green mixed up in the smoky darkness, and Elena remembered what Jasmine and Meredith had said about Trinity’s eyes.

  As they neared the middle of the lake, the boat suddenly lurched. Elena yelped, grabbing hold of its side to keep her balance.

  “What was that?” Darlene asked sharply.

  “The wind must be picking up,” Matt said, but there was a note of uncertainty in his voice.

  The waves were getting bigger, tossing the boat angrily in the water. Elena gripped the sides so hard her fingers ached.

  “There’s no wind,” Darlene said suddenly, and Elena realized she was right. The sky was black and ominous, but the air was still. The waves moved more violently, the front of the boat going up in the air and then smacking down onto the water with a sickening lurch.

  Right in front of Elena, the aura she’d been following disappeared, dissolving into nothingness.

  “It’s a trick,” she gasped, just as the boat smacked into the water hard, dumping them out.

  Elena was pulled down, down, down under the water, her hair streaming out behind her like a mermaid’s. No, she thought, no, please, no. She’d drowned once before, in the dark waters of the creek under Wickery Bridge. She’d died.

  She kicked and thrashed, trying to swim up toward the surface, but it was as if some invisible force was pushing on her, sending her straight down. Her feet hit the muddy bottom and waterweed, soft as feathers, wrapped itself around her legs.

  Holding her breath, she bent her legs and pushed off hard against the lake bottom, focusing on the dim light above. She could see shadows in the water above her—Matt and Darlene, and the vague outline of the boat.

  She was so cold. Colder than made sense for a summer day, even in deep water.

  The water had been cold the other time—the night she went off the bridge. Ice in her hair, the heavy painful push of water filling her lungs, the blackness that had sucked her in. The last thing she had seen was the hood of Matt’s car swallowed by dark water.

  I’m not going to make it. Elena pushed the thought away and kept swimming upward. Ice crystals were forming around her, she realized, sharp and crystalline.

  She was about to break through when her hands hit something hard and flat and cold above her. She gasped in surprise, accidentally letting the water in, and red-and-black sparks burst in her vision. With the last of her strength, Elena pounded her fists against the barrier, felt for an opening. But it was no use.

  The pond had frozen over above her. Solomon.

  She tried to keep hitting at the ice, but she was floating down, down, toward the darkness below. A human death, she thought, and then, Oh, Stefan, I’m so sorry to leave you this way.

  Some last spark in her flared in rebellion. She wasn’t going to die like this, not again. She was a Guardian. Elena reached deep, deep inside herself and pulled hard at the last of her Power.

  Something arced out of her, a pure white light, and with a sudden shock, the ice above her head cracked violently open. And somehow, with one last feeble kick, she managed to break the surface of the water.

  She opened her eyes but for a moment, she still couldn’t see. She was coughing, taking great rasping, greedy breaths, struggling not to slip back under. And then something grabbed her by the hair, was now holding her by the arms, and she started fighting it, turning and twisting blindly in the water.

  “Elena! Elena!” There was a sharp pain across her face, and Elena stopped struggling, shocked. “Elena!” It was Matt, gripping onto one of her arms, his other hand raised to slap her again. Darlene, her wet hair matted, was clutching her other arm. The boat bobbed across the water next to them.

  Tears streaming from her eyes, Elena clung to Matt, his body warm and solid next to her freezing one. She choked and gagged some more, spitting icy water. “It was a trick,” she managed to say after a minute, sobbing.

  “I know. I can’t … I don’t know what just happened, but I’m so glad you’re okay.” Matt gulped and took a deep breath, his arms tight around Elena. “We have to get back to shore.”

  Matt boosted Elena up, steadying the boat with one hand. With a lot of effort, she managed to wiggle back over the side, scraping her stomach uncomfortably, and land in a graceless heap on the bottom of the boat.

  They rowed back toward shore. The waves were gone and the surface of the lake was still. The ice had already almost melted in the summer sun, but here and there bits of it bobbed on the lake surface, so beautiful that Elena could barely believe it had just tried to kill her.

  Matt frowned. “Maybe Stefan is right. Maybe it’s too dangerous to try to save Trinity.”

  “No,” Elena said. Her head was pounding, her eyes burned, and her chest felt raw and painful, but she wasn’t going to listen to an argument about this again. “We’re not going to kill her. Not unless we know for sure that she’s already gone.”

  “No sign here,” Jack said, tapping his earpiece. “But Solomon doesn’t usually leave evidence of kills. Stay north and keep your eyes open. We’re heading southwest.”

  Meredith heard the murmur of Stefan and Alex’s reply, and then they ended the transmission. Jack jerked his chin and she followed him southwest through the woods, scanning carefully all around them.

  She caught sight of a mark in the mud underfoot and lifted a hand to get Jack’s attention. “Footprints,” she said, keeping her voice low just in case. The indentations were indistinct, but they looked about Trinity’s size. Not many people would be walking this far back in the woods.

  Jack kneeled down to examine them, his blue-jeaned knees sinking into the soft soil. “Not her.” He gestured at the heel. “These are too big. Trinity has smaller feet than this.”

  “Oh,” said Meredith, disappointed. They’d been searching the woods for a while, and so far, they hadn’t found anything. No bodies, no sign of anything unnatural. “Sorry,” she added, feeling useless.

  “Solomon’s always been incredibly talented at staying invisible,” Jack said, as if he were reading her mind. “Andrés being able to find Solomon was the first break we’d had in a long time.” He straightened up and shot Meredith a crooked smile. “Any chance we’ll be able to talk Elena into trying again? I didn’t know how handy a Guardian could be.”

  Meredith shook her head. “Elena won’t help hunt as long as she thinks she might be able to save Trinity.”

  “Yeah, I see that.” Jack’s shoulders drooped and, for a minute, he looked very tired. “Trinity was a terrific hunter. But we have to accept that she’s gone and what we’re hunting is the vampire that killed her.”

  “I know,” said Meredith. Her stave felt heavier than usual. There wasn’t a lot of pleasure in this hunt, knowing that, at best, it would end in fighting something that had the shape of a friend.

  They walked on in silence for a while. A couple of times, Jack stopped to check footprints on the forest floor, but both times shook his head and went on. Not Trinity’s. Meredith kept her eyes peeled for any anomalies.

  Then she spotted a familiar clump
of plants: soft purple blossoms, branching green stems, and small-toothed leaves. “Look, vervain,” she said, pleased, and unzipped the pack she carried on her back. The opportunity to restock their vervain supply wasn’t something she would pass up. She began to pick the herb’s shoots one by one, careful not to crush their blossoms.

  “I haven’t used vervain much,” Jack said, coming closer to look. “But I should probably start putting it in tea or something, like you do. Does it hurt Stefan, though? To be around it?”

  “Not really. Of course, he could never drink from any of us, but I don’t think it would ever come to that.” She paused. “It’s important for the rest of us to keep our minds clear. We need all the defenses we can get.”

  Jack crouched down to examine the spindly plants more closely. “I never would have considered hunting with a vampire before now,” he ventured. “Doesn’t it bother you? What he is?”

  Meredith straightened up. She’d picked all the plants but left the roots, just the way Bonnie had taught her. They’d grow again and she could come back to this patch for more. “Stefan’s more than proven himself to me,” she said flatly. “And he’s not a killer. He doesn’t feed on humans.”

  “I know that,” Jack said. “He told me. Doesn’t that make him weaker, though?” His dark eyes were intent.

  “I guess, but he’s pretty strong anyway. He’s old, and vampires get stronger with age,” Meredith said, suddenly determined to defend Stefan. She took a few steps farther into the woods, continuing their trek, then stopped and turned back to Jack, feeling a fierce, protective rush of heat inside her. “I trust Stefan. I might be a hunter, but I’m always going to be on his side.”

  Jack nodded and started walking again, shoulder to shoulder with her.

  They walked in silence for a while after that. The day was getting hot, the sky a deep blue dome high above them. Meredith felt easier now, glad that she and Jack understood each other about Stefan. He wasn’t an enemy of the hunters.

  “You look tired, Meredith,” Jack said, breaking the silence. “You doing all right?”

  “I … I haven’t been sleeping well lately,” she admitted.

  “Anything wrong?”

  “I keep having these weird dreams,” Meredith said hesitantly. It wasn’t really in her nature to talk about things like this; she hated seeming weak. But she felt strangely comfortable with Jack: He was a hunter; he was like her. “I dream that I’m in a hospital room, or maybe a lab, and I can’t move.” Shuddering, she realized how lame her words sounded. It was hard to explain how disturbing the dreams were. “I just feel like something terrible is happening,” she said weakly.

  Jack nodded, his warm brown eyes sympathetic. “Sounds scary.” His arm brushed Meredith’s reassuringly. “But you know the dreams can’t hurt you, unless you let them. They’re just images your mind has created while you’re asleep. It’s reality we need to worry about.”

  “I know.” And to her surprise, Meredith did feel a little better. Just bringing the dreams into the daylight, putting them into words, had made them seem harmless. Jack was right. What was scary about a few dreams when she fought monsters in real life?

  Finally alone, Stefan gentled his Power and sent it questing through the woods. He was aching with hunger, but he hadn’t let himself feed in front of the hunters. They didn’t need him rubbing their faces in the fact that they were allied with their natural enemy.

  He kept his Power warm and coaxing, beckoning come to me, come to me. Soon he heard a light step approaching through the undergrowth. A doe stepped delicately into the clearing, her big eyes fixed on Stefan.

  “Yes, that’s right,” he murmured. He stretched out a hand, and the doe came to him willingly, nuzzling his fingers with her soft nose. She gazed up into his eyes and gradually grew still, until the only motion in the clearing was the steady rise and fall of her flanks. Stefan lowered his face to her neck, his canines lengthening, and drank.

  Long before he was satisfied, Stefan pulled away. Taking any more would leave the deer weak, and he didn’t want her vulnerable to other predators because of him. “Go on,” he said, slapping her lightly on the side. Shocked out of her trance, the deer started violently and leaped away, crashing through the undergrowth as she went.

  Just as Stefan raised his hand to wipe the blood from his lips, his phone rang.

  He fished it out of his pocket, still feeling warm from feeding, and looked at the display. Damon.

  He let it ring again, thinking of not answering, but stopped himself. Katherine was dead, and whether or not that was Stefan’s fault, he owed it to Damon to talk to him. Stefan had tried several times to reach Damon right after Elena had confirmed what he guessed about Katherine’s death, but this was the first time his brother was returning his calls.

  “Stefan.” Damon’s voice sounded crisply determined, as if their last conversation had never happened. “I’ve been following up some leads on those vampires I keep meeting up with, and I wanted—”

  “Damon,” Stefan broke in. “Are you all right?” He tried to put weight behind his words, knowing that Katherine’s death would have changed Damon, damaged him.

  And if whatever had killed Katherine was still after Damon, he was in danger. Katherine had been old and strong and clever, not an easy target. Stefan rubbed a hand across his face and leaned back against a tree, suddenly worried about his brother.

  He heard Damon sigh tiredly. “I will be,” he said quietly. “I’ve got their trail now.”

  “The hunted becomes the hunter,” Stefan quipped, and Damon gave a short answering huff of laughter. “Damon, why did you tell Elena I wouldn’t help you?” Stefan asked.

  There was a pause on the other end of the line. “Because you wouldn’t help me?” Damon said dryly.

  “Did you want her to be angry with me?”

  Damon was quiet for a moment, and then he exhaled, a long, weary gust of breath. “Fine,” he said. “I may have not been completely fair when I spoke to Elena. Katherine’s death wasn’t your fault.”

  “I didn’t know things were so bad over there,” Stefan said, meeting Damon’s almost-apology with one of his own.

  “It’s probably better that you’re not here. I’d only have to protect you.” There was an edge of humor in Damon’s voice, and Stefan relaxed, only to feel himself tensing again at his brother’s next words. “What’s going on with Elena?” Damon asked. “I can feel her pushing herself, all anxious and frustrated. It’s very distracting, like an itch.” His tone was light, but Stefan heard real worry behind it.

  Stefan sighed. His head ached, and the lingering taste of the doe’s blood was suddenly sour in his mouth. Stumbling a little over his words, he tried to explain about Trinity, about Elena’s refusal to help Stefan and the hunters kill her. “I just want to protect her,” he finished miserably. “Why can’t Elena understand?”

  There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. “Listen, little brother,” Damon said finally, his voice unusually gentle. “Don’t be an idiot.”

  “Thank you, Damon.” Stefan’s canines prickled with irritation. “Always a pleasure to hear from you.”

  “She’s not a child; she’s a Guardian, you halfwit,” Damon snapped. “She loves you—how much she loves you I can feel pounding through this connection between us, even when I don’t want to. She’s never going to stop. But she’s made to protect the innocent, and if she thinks this Trinity is one of them, then maybe you should listen to her. She might know something you don’t.”

  Stefan felt like the wind had been knocked out of him. Had he been underestimating Elena, ignoring her instincts, so sure that he knew what was right? “I have to go,” he said absently into the phone, and hung up.

  Wiping the last traces of the doe’s blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, he headed for home.

  Damon shook his head and tucked his phone back into his pocket. Stefan never had been able to take advice gracefully, not even when they’d been hu
man. Damon had wanted to tell Stefan about Lifetime Solutions, just in case something happened, but he wasn’t going to bother calling back. He’d just have to be careful.

  He put the whole conversation out of his head and focused on the office building in front of him. At first glance, there was nothing special about the gray-and-glass building; it was practically designed to blend in anonymously. Only the discreet sign showing an infinity symbol and the words LIFETIME SOLUTIONS confirmed that Damon had found what he was searching for.

  And it hadn’t been easy to find, not at all. It had taken Damon days of searching, calling in favors, even consulting a witch, before he finally found his way here—to an inoffensive-looking office building on the outskirts of Zurich.

  No legitimate business would be this hard to find—which made Damon sure that something extremely shady was going on behind these walls. Something that led straight to the seemingly unkillable vampires.

  It was the end of the day, and office workers were beginning to stream from the building. Damon looked them over carefully, finally selecting a pretty young blonde who was walking alone, carrying an armful of files.

  This would be easier if he was still able to use his Power to Influence anyone he wanted. Technically, the Guardian who bound him to Elena had only forbidden him from using his Influence to feed, but he’d fallen out of the habit of using his Power on humans in general. Besides, they were a fickle bunch, Guardians; he didn’t want to set them off.

  And he still had his charm. Moving to intercept the woman, Damon bumped against her, sending her files flying to the ground.

  “Oh, no,” Damon said in German, “I’m so sorry. Let me help you.”

  The woman’s face had flushed with anger, but whatever sharp reply she was about to make died on her lips once she got a good look at him. He gave her his most beguiling smile and saw her soften instantly.

  By the time they’d picked up her files, Damon had learned that the woman’s name was Anneli Yoder, that she was twenty-five, and that she was a secretary to a group of scientists at Lifetime Solutions.